Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 291

NOVEMBER, 1897.] CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
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(6) Livestock. - Livestock of all sorts have been used for barter and to express wealth all the world over and from the earliest times, so much so that Prof. Ridgeway in his Origin vf Currency makes this fact the basis of his argument as to how the names and forms for words expressing cur.ency arose. It will not be necessary here, therefore, to give more than one or two typical cases of their use in the East and Far East.
An interesting instance is recorded from the Maldives by Ibn Batuta in the XIV th Century." The natives buy with chickens any pottery which may be brought. A pot fetches five or six chickens."67 Another important instance is quoted by Yule in his notes to Marco Polo's text (Vol. II. p. 37) :- M. Desgodins, a missionary in this part of Tibet, gives some curious details of the way in which the civilized traders still prey upon the simple hillfolks of that quarter, exactly as the Hindu Banyas prey upon the simple forest tribes of India. He states one case in which the account for a pig had with interest run up to 2,127 bushels of corn!" Again we find from Max Müller, Ohips, Vol. I. p. 193, that "a copy of the Kanjur was bartered for 7,000 oxen by the Buriates, and the same tribe paid 1,200 silver roubles for a complete copy of the Kanjur and Tanjor together." Now the Kanjur is about half the Tanjur, so we can now get n curious expression of oxen in terms of silver. The 7,000 oxen would be thus worth about one-third of the 1,200 roubles, or 400 roubles, or, roughly, an ox was then only worth half a rouble, which gives a very low value in cash for such animals when used as currency.68
Mr. C. A. Soppitt, Short Account of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes, p. 23, gives an instance of direct valuation in terms of cattle :- " The price of a full-grown 'withen' (hos frontalis) varies from 40 to 80 rupees. Among the people the value of property is often spoken of as so many * neithean'; in this case a mithun ' being equivalent to 40 rupees. A Raja, for example, will suy he gave so many mitkuns ' for his wife, meaning so many 40 rupees."
Compare with the above the followiny extract from Macpherson's Memorials, p. 64:The use of money with the exception of cowries was until recently (1865) nearly unknown to the Maliah Khonds, and the valne of all property is estimated by them in 'lives.' a measure which requires some adjustment every time it is applied : a bullock, u buffalo, i poat, a pig or i fowl, a bag of grain, or a set of brass pots, being each, with anything that may be agreed mpon, a "life." hundred lives on an average may be taken to consist of 10 bullocks, 10 buffaloes, 10 sacks of corn, 10 sets of brass prots, 20 sheep, 10 pigs and 30 fowls."
III. Manufactured articles. - From the nse of raw or rough produce its currency to that of articles manufactured for the purpose is no doubt a distinct ascent, but the earlier steps in it sre hardly to be distinguished from the use of the raw produce itself. It has been seen that salt in currency has been artificially made for such a use into cakes and rolls, and that mulberries have been caked into measures.69 Tea, though distinctly a mannfactured article, has long been and is still used in precisely the same way all about the border's of Burma. Some sorts of ten, e. g., Paesh tea, are very valuable even now, and tea generally, if we are to credit the earlier European travellers who mention it, seems to have been an exceedingly valuable article only a few centuries ago, and in the form of cakes may well lave passed into a kind of cnrrency.
(1) Tea. - Terrien de la Couperie, Chinese Coins, p. xx., mentions "ten in bricks,70 on the borders of Tibet" as a form of non-metallic enitency, and, in his Across Chryse, Colquhoun, who seems to have been considerably troubled by the presents made him in consequence of the
67 Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. Ed., Vol. II. p. 443.
See Ridgeway, Origin of Currency, p. 124 f, See Yale, Cathay, P. coxvi., where Le quotes Ramusio, c. 1550. Sago in caker was currency at Ternate in 1596: Dutch Voyages, 1703, p. 285.
To Macmahon, Far Cathay, p. 237, alludes to these tea-bricks, quoting an unacknowledged passage from Baber, which again seems to have been copied from Huc, TH. Nat. Lib. Ed., Vol. I. p. 146, terbalim.